


soap, spit, and sweetness

by ChocoChipBiscuit



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:35:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24573169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocoChipBiscuit/pseuds/ChocoChipBiscuit
Summary: Three mysteries of Carja-Oseram diplomacy, and five times that Erend won’t admit to loving Avad.
Relationships: Avad/Erend (Horizon: Zero Dawn)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 36





	soap, spit, and sweetness

**Author's Note:**

> Kindly beta'd by [shiniestqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowinsky/pseuds/shiniestqueen).
> 
> For anyone concerned, consider this an AU where Avad/Ersa never happened.

He's the most beautiful man that Erend has ever seen.

Erend opens his mouth, but is swept aside as Ersa shoves past him with a shout. She hoists the newcomer under his arms, spinning him in a circle with his feet flung wide like a seedpod whirling in the breeze. When finally set on his feet, he wobbles unsteadily, holding his head. Erend catches the way he looks at Ersa, those dark eyes swollen with wonder and the softness in his jaw, like a warrior after a long-homecoming, and immediately resigns himself to his sister’s shadow. Erend knows his own charms—stout arms, strong back, good beard—but if Erend’s a spark bright enough to catch a man’s eye, then Ersa’s the sun itself.

Ersa and the stranger catch up with a rapid exchange, impeded by their own interruptions and insistence that no, _they_ interrupted, the other person should go first. It’s all play-acting, a rattle of spears without steel, and Erend’s ready to go soak his head in the nearest bucket. He crosses his arms, grunting, and gives the man’s honor guard a friendly elbow in the stomach.

His ‘friendly jab’ nearly bowls the guard over.

Erend offers scrappersap to make amends, and Ersa finally, _finally_ introduces the beautiful man to everyone else. His name is Avad, he’s a prince, and he has a suitably romantic past and an even more romantic rescue, on account of him helping Ersa escape the Carja. And Erend’s grateful for his sister, but why couldn’t she have been rescued by someone uglier, dammit? One that didn’t turn Erend’s insides to molten metal?

Avad and his men—and yes, they _are_ all men, no matter that the women of the Oseram had been shouting about so-called Carja equality before the Red Raids—are invited to dinner with the freebooters, and Erend finds himself seated next to the prince. 

He is no less beautiful up close, which is...disconcerting. He wears long-limbed elegance like an exotic bird, but anything that beautiful _must_ be workmanship; look up close at any toy or trinket and you’ll find the maker’s marks, the hammer used to strike or the chisel used to engrave. A good craftsman will file away the edges, but there _are_ edges. Flaws. Imperfections, the things that remind a man that it’s the work of one’s hands. Avad has bright colors whorled on his skin and under his eyes, all glitter and gold. Erend wonders if it’s paint or tattoos, if they will smear away in a hard rain. And Avad’s moustache is laughable, really, but—

“Your sister has told me much about you,” Avad says warmly. His food is untouched, his hands folded in his lap. “And I can see the resemblance between you.”

Erend grunts, breaking his bread and dipping it into the barley stew. It’s good, hearty stuff, and if the fussy Carja won’t eat it, then more for the rest of them. “Yeah? Everyone knows I’m the pretty one.”

Avad smiles, picking up his bread. It crosses Erend’s mind that _ah_ , Avad might not actually know what to do, so he deliberately slows his own eating so that Avad can watch Erend use the bread as a scoop. Erend has seen spoons and the like being used at higher tables, but a good dense bread doubles as its own spoon among the Oseram.

Avad eats with small, neat bites. “You both walk in the sun, and it shines in your eyes.”

Is he flirting? Erend’s pretty sure he’s not flirting. But surely that deserves some sort of response? This close, Erend is keenly aware of Avad’s warmth, the skin-tang of oils and sweat. A little worn from travel, sure, but it’s clean sweat and warm skin, plus some kind of sharp herbal scent, almost floral, and…

“You smell good,” Erend blurts.

Avad pauses, a scoop of bread halfway to his mouth. “Ah. Thank you? It’s soap?”

Erend then spends an exhausting and inebriated half hour trying to explain that _yes_ , he knows what _soap_ is, he’s not a _barbarian_ , but Avad’s soap is...something embarrassing that Erend just shuts up and swallows his words around.

. . .

Forge and fire, but it’s inevitable that Ersa sweeps them all back together. There’s an impossible momentum to it, heavy as the wheel’s turn. Ersa and Avad are interlocked gears, turning the vast engine of the Oseram to one purpose.

“You think he’ll make good on his word?” Erend grunts, taking watch with Ersa outside the main camp. He stamps his feet to stay warm, his breath coming out in puffs of fog. It’s getting to maple tapping season, if they’re not embroiled in some Carja civil war.

Ersa grins, slinging an arm around his shoulder. “More than that. I _know_ he will.”

“Why?”

“His older brother died in the Sun-Ring. The Mad King’s devouring his own people, and the Sundom can’t sustain itself. That’s a bloody legacy to live down.”

Erend spits, arcing it to land at the roots of a nearby tree. Ersa snorts, then hocks one that lands a good foot beyond Erend’s.

“I’ll fight for the Claim. I’ll fight for the clans. I don’t know how I feel fighting for the Carja,” Erend says gloomily.

“We’re not fighting for the Carja. We’re forging a future,” Ersa says softly. She brushes her scalp—Erend had helped her shave earlier in the day, and she always spends the first few days after each haircut scratching at the bristles. “I was already a slave. I’m not interested in becoming property again.”

Erend flushes. Ersa has made her position clear; she intends to be no Bladewife. And if she thinks living with the Carja will help that...

“So. Uh. You’d never alloy with that one?”

“No.”

Erend’s heart soars.

“The Carja take an Oseram as consort to the new Sun-King? We’d have _another_ civil war. And can you imagine the Claim, so soon after the Red Raids?”

Erend’s heart sinks.

“We’re friends, and this is an alliance. That’s the only Carja-Oseram alloy that we’ll be making.” Ersa shrugs, giving Erend a friendly nudge. “Would you?”

“Too skinny!”

“He has a sweet tooth! He’ll fatten up!” Ersa laughs, locking her arm around Erend’s neck and grinding her knuckles into his head. He squalls, raising his arm to smack at her face, but she fends him off with her elbow. “Did you know he’s never had maple before? I bet one taste and he’ll—”

Erend finally gets a finger in her eye, wedging his knee behind hers so he can flip her onto the ground. She lands on her back, rattling the snow and laughing hard enough to send a startled owl hooting into the night.

. . .

It takes months of planning and every bottle of Erend’s scrappersap, but they finally ready the assault on Meridian. And while Avad is many things—handsome, soft-handed, remarkably and wonderfully _fragrant_ in a way that Erend catches himself trying _not_ to sniff every time he’s near—he’s no fighter. So it’s up to his honor guard to defend him, which means it’s up to _Ersa_ to defend him.

And because Ersa is there, so is Erend.

Avad insists that Meridian be preserved, which means that the guns of the Oseram thunder at key points, seeking to weaken rather than demolish. It’s fire and smoke, blood and ash along the twisting streets and rugged stairs of a city that’s ten times larger than any that Erend has ever dreamed of. It’s a maze, a labyrinth, one of the two and he can’t be gutted to remember the difference while he locks shields in formation, sheltering the prince behind a wall of Oseram muscle. Ersa’s bellowing orders, the fury in her lungs overwhelming the red roar of battle as Erend swings, aims, swings again. He has no head for the larger strategy—they’re climbing up to the Palace of the Sun, they’re fighting over white steps slick with gore—and keeps himself focused on motion, on movement, on preserving their would-be king and ending this whole gear-gritted thing.

It’s not until Avad confronts the Mad King— _confronts_ him, tries to use soft words instead of hard steel—that the hammer finally drops.

Oh.

In all this planning, in all this confusion, it had never actually sunk in that Mad King Jiran was Avad’s _father_. Yes, Jiran was the king, and Avad was a prince, but…

Reluctantly, Avad ends Jiran’s life.

It is quick, well-done. The blood spatters across the sandstone, a crimson spray on Avad’s boots. The pretty prince holds his spear after, hands unsteady, and Erend takes it from him.

“I’m sorry,” Erend mutters. He’s not, not really, but it seems like the kind of thing that should be said.

Avad smiles weakly, all his gilded edges soft and blurry. There’s ash streaked across his cheek, and some of the bright feathers in his headdress are missing, but the kohl lining his eyes stays sharp. “It had to be done.”

Erend spits, making sure it lands a distance from the corpse. As usual, Ersa outdoes him.

Avad works his lips, then tries spitting as well. It lands a few ignominious inches from his feet.

“If you want to stay allies with the Oseram, you’ll have to learn how to spit,” says Ersa, face lit up with foxfire mischief.

“Let it never be said I can’t learn from the proud traditions of the Oseram.”

. . .

Erend misses the Claim. He misses the maples, the biting cold and the roaring clans, the feeling that he doesn’t need to watch every step, doesn’t need to bite every word out of his mouth in case it lands in shit. For all that Meridian is a Carja city, there’s enough Oseram workmanship to constantly remind him of home. It’s like missing a tooth, and probing the socket only reminds him of its absence.

He doesn’t love Meridian, but he loves Ersa. And that’s why he’s staying.

He is _not_ staying for Avad. He tells himself this as he buries his infatuation in the heat of others’ thighs, in the grip of a pretty Sunguard and the snap of a Forgewoman’s hips. Erend learns the paths of his new home, swelters under the weight of his armor in the blasted heat of this sun-blessed place. Avad gives Erend a cake of soap and Ersa _laughs_ but Erend likes it, likes lathering it to white bubbles and crumbling herbs, little pieces of sweet green smell that remind him of Avad. It never smells quite the same on Erend, but it’s close enough for memory. He tries looking for it in the market, even learns some of the ingredients—yarrow for that sweet-sharp green smell, geranium for that fruity floral—but nothing he buys on his own smells quite right. And whenever he asks Avad where to get it, Avad just _gives_ it to him. Unfair.

Avad has ended the Red Raids and formed an official alliance with the Oseram, including the formation of the Vanguard. Ersa is captain, of course, and Erend falls into her shadow with the ease of long practice.

Erend also teaches Avad how to spit.

Hidden in the palace gardens, facing away from the steep vista of the city below, Erend shares a bottle of scrappersap and a carefully hoarded box of maple candy. The buttery sweet tends to melt in the Carja heat, and the last time Erend tried finishing it on his own he ended up with a stomach-ache. So he shares it with Avad, because Ersa’s got her own treasure-box and didn’t bother sharing last time. Serves her right.

Also, Avad goes blissfully cross-eyed around mouthfuls of candy. And is only more ridiculous when he licks his fingers for stray morsels.

Erend tries not to think about how _appealing_ that ridiculousness is.

“Gather it to the front of your mouth. Top of your tongue, cheeks caved and lips tight,” Erend instructs, wetting his lips from the bottle. He runs his tongue across the back of his teeth, imagining what it would taste from Avad’s tongue.

Avad obliges, lips pursed and rounded.

“Take a breath—and blow! Snap your neck with it.”

Avad _puffs_ instead, creating a droopy arc that lands in a potted plant.

Erend laughs, belly warm with alcohol and good feeling. “I’m pretty sure you could _piss_ farther.”

“Never underestimate how far a king can piss,” Avad says, with more dignity than Erend can possibly imagine saying that same line.

He looks...good. Less haunted than that skinny thing he’d been, the first time Erend had met him. Still all gold and edges, his beard delicately shaped and his hands uncalloused, but he’s also grown into his role, the column of his spine strong and unbending beneath the weight of his crown. When he takes it off, there’s silver shot amidst his dark curls, but it’s like embroidery. Just one more pretty thing to add to Avad’s many pretty traits.

Ersa would laugh herself sick if she knew.

. . .

Ersa would laugh herself sick if she weren’t dead.

This is the first time the pretty Sun-King’s in Erend’s bed, and it’s not even like Avad or Erend get to _enjoy_ it.

Erend had started drinking to mourn her death, then drinking to celebrate the hope of her return, and then drank some more to mourn her passing, and finally decided to engage in a purely celebratory drinking that he controlled himself well enough not to break Dervahl’s bones with his bare hands. The Oseram are good with hammers, and he can imagine how the clans will outbid themselves in welcoming Dervahl home. There’s something like two hundred bones in the human body; two hundred chances to show Dervahl the error of his ways.

And none of them will bring Ersa back.

So Erend started drinking, and kept drinking, and eventually Avad invited himself to his room and started drinking with him. Avad had sputtered down his first few sips, eyes watering, then gamely tried keeping pace with Erend. Finally, Erend had to stop drinking because Avad was listing sideways, more booze than breath. Erend forced him to drink down some water before laying Avad to bed, curled on his side.

Erend sets himself on a padded chair, legs wide, and falls asleep.

He’s slept in worse places, woken up to worse noises than Avad’s reedy snores and pretty face. Avad’s dark hair is tousled on the pillow, his legs curled beneath him like a spoon waiting to nestle against its mate, and now Erend has the rare chance to study his face without being scrutinized in return.

Dimly, Erend is startled to recognize that Avad has wrinkles. They are faint things, normally lost beneath the paint and glitter of Avad’s makeup, but still there. Soft lines of worry bracket his mouth, somewhat distorted by Avad’s cheek mashed into the pillow, and pale crow’s feet trace the edges of his eyes.

 _I’m sorry that I’m not her_ , Erend thinks.

He doesn’t realize he’s said it out loud until Avad’s eyes creak open.

“I’m sorry that I’m not her either,” Avad whispers. He sits up, squinting against the light and probable hangover. His paint’s smeared in a melt of color and his hair’s flat on one side, but even smelling of liquor and morning breath and in rumpled robes he manages to be the most beautiful man that Erend has ever seen. “She was strong. Shrewd. Capable.”

“More than me, that’s for sure.”

Avad shakes his head, groaning. “She gave me advice. You give me strength.”

Erend ducks his head, and distracts himself by cleaning up the discarded bottles on the floor.

It turns out that Avad has never had a hangover before, which means that Erend has the dubious honor of tending him with honeyed tea and water. Blameless Marad keeps giving him _meaningful_ looks that Erend promptly ignores, but after a good breakfast and some mysterious dried roots that Marad instructs them both to chew on, the both of them are ready to face the world and shoulder their grief.

. . .

It’s the final battle against Helis, and while Aloy explains that the enemy’s goal is the Spire, not the people, Avad refuses to let Meridian suffer. It means little to his citizens whether their pain is incidental to HADES’ larger goal, and so they shore the defenses and place the cannons. It’s a strange reversal of the first time that Erend had seen this city—this time he’s defending his home, not striking the heart of a tyrant.

This is a fight larger than any they’ve faced before. The stakes are higher, but.

That doesn’t mean the previous stakes were any less.

Either of them could have died during the Liberation of Meridian.

Either of them could just as easily die now.

Which is why Erend grips Avad’s hand, relentlessly trains him in drills and spear, personally inspects the pretty king’s armor and runs him through the myriad escape routes out of the palace, out of the city. He’d rather be here to defend his king and friend, but—

“Go with Aloy. If we lose Aloy, we lose the world,” Avad whispers. Voice soft, little more than a hint of breath over intent.

“And if I lose you, my lord, I’ve lost—” Too late, Erend realizes his error. He sees it magnified in Avad’s deep eyes, in the fractional crease of his inner brow, in all the unmarked touches and soft nights spent speaking under the stars. “—I’ve lost. Uh. My soap. I still don’t know where you get it.”

Avad laughs, warm and gentle. Erend wants to wrap himself in the sound of it. If any love could turn aside an arrow, if sentiment is stronger than steel, then surely it’s this.

But it would be too cruel to tell Avad now. Too cruel to both of them by far, to torment them on the _if, if, if_ of it, like ingots tumbled on cobbled stone. Too cruel to assume that Avad must put on a brave face if he does not return those feelings, if Avad does not feel the same—

“Erend. You’ve given me strength for years. Please, forgive me for not being strong enough to say this sooner,” Avad says, curling his long fingers around Erend’s hands, soft palms over Erend’s calluses. His thumb strokes the knuckle of Erend’s thumb, and Erend feels all the blood rising to his face in a rash of heat. “I love you. Let there be nothing else between us.”

Erend holds himself stiff, feeling as if the cables of his jaw have clenched tight, as if all the levers of his body have locked in place. “My lord, I—”

And because he’s always been better with actions than with words, he kisses Avad.

Avad’s silly little moustache tickles Erend’s lip. He’s sure that his own stubble is chafing Avad’s soft face, but they tilt, move with it. Their teeth click together and Erend pulls back, ready to give up on the whole clumsy affair, but then Avad places one hand on the back of Erend’s head to pull him back and _ah_ , that’s it, now their pieces fit together like clockwork, a perfectly designed mechanism that gently meters out the warmth of their touch, the breath of their bodies. Avad tastes of lemongrass and honey, and Erend’s pretty sure he’s gotten the better end of the deal since Avad doubtless tastes nothing but scrappersap from him, but. _But_.

This is it. This is them.

If this is Erend’s last taste of sweetness before the end, he’ll gladly take it.


End file.
